With Democrats and Republicans
looking more alike with each passing election, a
growing number of Americans are looking elsewhere for
leadership. Voters from across the political spectrum
see the two-party system as fatally flawed, morally
bankrupt and driven by monied interests. In disgust, in
desperation, many Americans are willing to "throw away"
their vote by supporting candidates with no chance of
winning.

Across the country, the disaffected are looking to
third parties for something to believe in, someone to
represent them. In South Carolina, the Reform Party,
the Libertarian Party, the U.S. Taxpayers Party, and
the Patriot Party have ballot status. All of them lean
to the right.

In other parts of the country, the left has been
serious about organizing an alternative to the status
quo. One of the more visible campaigns has been Ralph
Nader's bid for the presidency. To date, he is on the
ballot in nine states; some 35 more are collecting
signatures.

Ralph Nader's presidential candidacy is often dismissed by the
argument that support for third parties is "throwing away your vote." But
the growing convergence of the two major parties offers powerful evidence
that to vote in the mainstream this year is a reckless waste of
progressive power.

While there are differences between Bob Dole and Bill Clinton, they
are more alike than they are different, and in ways that bode ill for the
future of democracy. They share fundamentally the same world view on the
key issue of our time: globalization. The world is becoming a seamless
marketplace, and global corporations are the lead actors in the play.

In fact, Clinton has served the process in a way no Republican could.
Just as only Nixon could go to China, only a president from the ostensible
party of working people and the environment could gain passage of global
trade agreements that undermine both.

It is unlikely that George Bush could have peeled off enough
Democratic members of Congress to win support of GATT and NAFTA. Clinton
did just that, lobbying for these treaties with a vigor virtually
unmatched in any other legislative campaign of his presidency.

The result is the increasing consolidation of a global, corporate
oligarchy that aims to strip localities, regions and nations of any power
to independently guide their own future. We will have to defend our
environmental and social standards before world bodies constituted by the
corporate powers.

The race to the bottom has just begun. Ironically, our rights to
democratically control our own lives would probably be in much better
shape if George Bush had been reelected.

The "lesser of evils" defense

This points up a crucial dynamic little acknowledged by advocates of
"lesser of two evils" voting: It is more possible for progressives to
organize resistance against Republicans than Democrats. This is why, even
if a Democrat is more resonant with progressive positions than is a
Republican, it still should not mean automatic support. A Democrat can
make progressive noises during a campaign, then cut the ground out from
under progressives once elected, having co-opted and destroyed any
possibility for a coherent opposition. This is very much what Clinton has
done, on issue after issue.

In the Northwest, where ancient forests were protected by a court
injunction when Clinton came into office, Clinton's forest plan re-opened
at least half to logging. In the process, a strong regional forest
movement was weakened and split. Clinton later signed the "salvage"
logging rider, and his later apologies have not been backed by sufficient
action. Clinton has allowed acre of acre of ancient and native forest to
be clearcut without exerting his legal powers to cancel bad timber sales.

On social policy, Clinton has also surrendered vital ground to the
right, endorsing punitive welfare reform measures. Only the degree to
which the poor will be punished distinguishes him from Republicans.
Meanwhile, the military budget remains at Cold War levels while a
concerted program for rebuilding inner cities and lower-income communities
is not even on the table.

Affirmative action in education, hiring, contracting and political
representation has represented a successful social investment program,
since the 1960s creating an African-American middle class. While
conservative courts lay waste to these efforts, the Clinton Administration
has envisioned no replacement.

Even the modest social investments Clinton proposed during the 1992
campaign were quickly canceled due to pressure from Federal Reserve
Chairman Alan Greenspan. Clinton later reassured financial markets by
reappointing free market mystic Greenspan for another term

Meanwhile, Clinton's urban policy is largely indistinguishable from
the Republicans': Solve crime with more cops and more prisons. Keep crack
penalties which affect mostly people of color 100 times higher than
cocaine penalties, which primarily hit whites.

If you liked Ike

Clinton's great social policy promise of 1992, universal health care,
devolved into Hillary's bureaucratic monstrosity which revealed the
Clintons corporate tendencies. Instead of straight-up single-payer, which
would have put for-profit private insurers out of the business, the
Clintons opted for health care alliances, which still would have purchased
coverage from private companies.

But the alliances would have been too large for any but the five
largest companies to serve. Those companies supported the plan, but the
smaller companies in rational self-interest mounted a successful
opposition. Meanwhile, progressive forces that would have rallied behind
single-payer were put off by the alliances. The Clinton gamble, that the
five giants would have enough clout to put the health plan over the top,
failed. And still we are uncovered!

Clinton's policies, foreign and domestic, have largely been a
continuation of the Reagan-Bush years with a slightly more human face. His
major international priority is taking down trade barriers. On the home
front, it is deficit reduction and strong financial markets. Clinton is,
in essence, an Eisenhower Republican.

Given his record, progressives who are still considering holding their
nose and voting for Clinton might ask themselves why. The reality is that
a progressive vote for Clinton, after all he has done, could sign the
death warrant of any serious progressive movement in politics for years to
come.

Nobody has put the case any clearer than Nader supporter Ronnie
Dugger, founder of the Texas Observer and an organizer of the Alliance, a
progressive populist networking effort. "Both parties belong to the big
corporations," Dugger said, "and voting for either one, we abet those
corporations as they establish a new worldwide aristocracy of wealth and
power. Now to submit to that when we still have a fighting chance of
stopping it is, in my opinion, unethical. We must make a break. We must go
back to our generic standing as free persons and start a new country in
this one. We cannot do that by voting again for Clinton."

The tide is moving against progressives, against democracy, and toward
corporate rule. A Clinton vs. a Dole might shave off some of the
harsher edges, but the fundamental direction is the same. Any defense
Clinton might offer for the remnants of the New Deal and Great Society
still leaves our damaged democracy wide open to corporate attack.

Nader effectively summarized the bleak political situation in his July
8 cover story in The Nation . "The two-party duopoly
essentially
one corporate party with two heads called Republican and Democratic, each
wearing different makeup
presents the
citizenry every four years with a choice between the Bad and the Worse.
And every four years, both the Bad and the Worse get worse because there
is no counterpull to the corporate right-wing pull."

Progressives have only one option, to set up a new magnetic pole in
U.S. politics. The only alternative that does not sell out completely to
corporate interests is construction of a progressive, grassroots force
that relies more on people-power than money-power. The Nader campaign is
the best prospect on the horizon for accomplishing that task.

In 42 states, the Nader candidacy has catalyzed grassroots efforts to
place him on the ballot. In a dozen states, including the entire Pacific
Coast, that has already been accomplished, and by election day Nader's
name will likely appear on at least 30 state ballots.

In some states, Nader is on as an independent, in others as the Green
Party candidate. In Oregon, Nader is running on the ticket of the Pacific
Party, Oregon's Green Party affiliate. The campaign has already boosted
Green Party organizing around the United States. Overall, it promises to
build coalitions among diverse constituencies, to create new relationships
and communications networks, and to develop a citizen army with new skills
and experience in the practice of grassroots democracy.

The arguments against

But the Nader candidacy does have its critics among progressives. They
tend to focus on two arguments.

The first and perhaps most serious is that a focus on the presidential
election will leave behind no enduring organization. Some alternative
politics organizers, particularly in the New Party, assert the most solid
strategy starts at the local election level and works upwards.

The second argument is that Nader does not plan to raise funds or
undertake a full campaign schedule. Alexander Cockburn, a Nader supporter,
has taken Nader to task for his "zombie candidacy".

The last national, progressive third-party presidential campaign,
Barry Commoner's Citizens Party bid in 1980, offers some support for the
first argument. Before the election, the party's internal debate was
precisely over whether to focus on a big name national campaign or on
local, grassroots organizing. The party opted to go national with
Commoner. He drew less than a million votes, and the Citizens Party faded
into history.

Nader's approach, more zen than zombie, short-circuits the
national-local dichotomy. It is an exercise in paradox, for while it
focuses on a national effort, the only way it will be successful is if it
is strong at the local level. As Nader wrote in The Nation, "My
goal is to encourage a campaign dependent on self-reliant citizen muscle
at the grassroots, not some guy on a horse."

The campaign will be constituted of decentralized efforts undertaken
by grassroots initiative. Those are the kind of organizations likely to
endure past election day to run future local, state and national races.
Thus the two strongest arguments against the Nader candidacy tend to
cancel each other out.

The toolbox for democracy

For progressives, one intriguing aspect of the Nader campaign is its
possibilities for drawing mainstream support. The centerpiece of Nader's
campaign, the "Toolbox for Democracy" are common-sense ideas that
transcend left-right distinctions. In Nader's words, they create "the
facilities for community intelligence needed to make democracy a daily
reality." Among them are:

A binding none-of-the-above voting option, which would automatically
trigger a new election.

Public campaign financing through well-publicized taxpayer
checkoffs, allowing contributions of up to $100, far higher than the $1-3
on the current checkoff.

Easier voter registration and ballot access rules.

12-year term limitation.

A nonbinding national referendum procedure.

Binding initiative, referendum and recall authority in all states.

A guaranteed citizen right to sue the federal government.

Creation of a national taxpayer advocacy group funded by a tax
check-off.

Effective worker control over corporations, which they already
largely own through their $3 trillion plus in pension funds.

Restoration of public control over public assets such as the
airwaves and public lands.

Nader's platform gets down into the guts of the system and begins to
repair American democracy by eliminating chokepoints used by the corporate
elite. It gives people tools to balance the concentrated power of
corporations.

Driving the wedge

No doubt as the campaign develops, mainstream Democrats will make
their own use of social, "wedge" issues as they try to split the natural
progressive coalition.

Many women will be inclined to support Clinton out of fear that Dole
would destroy reproductive freedom. Gays will perhaps be reminded of
Nader's comment that he does not engage in "gonadal politics," even though
his point was staying on message with the Toolbox for Democracy.

It is unlikely, however, that even Dole can dislodge rights of choice
supported by an overwhelming majority. And Clinton's support of the bill
barring recognition of single-sex marriages at the federal level, and of
the "don't ask-don't tell" policy for the military, should indicate the
depth of his commitment to gay rights.

As with the entire range of citizen freedoms, it is powerful,
well-organized grassroots movements that are the real guarantor of rights
for women and gays. And these movements will grow best in the fertile soil
of a flourishing progressive movement.

Victory, not symbolism

The Nader campaign is no symbolic effort. It is a movement to begin
restoring balance to U.S. politics. Even a relatively small percentage,
say 5
10 percent in
the Western states that are an increasingly vital turf for Democratic
Party electoral geography, can have an important effect in coming years.

Clinton consultant Dick Morris has urged the president to set himself
on a pinnacle "triangulated" equidistant from the ends of the political
spectrum. A strong vote for Nader would force a reelected Clinton to
extend his triangulation scope to progressives.

In any case, the progressive strain in U.S. politics must develop its
own distinctive voice, rather than being diluted in Democratic Party mush.

Developing their own third party, progressives can bring their own
agenda to the foreground. Winning office isn't everything in politics, as
Ross Perot proved in 1992. Bringing a focus to the budget deficit, he
framed the overall debate of the coming four years.

In earlier times, third parties brought to the fore ideas later
enacted by the two major parties: utility regulation, direct election of
senators, antitrust laws, women's right to vote, unemployment insurance,
workplace health and safety regulation, workers comp and social security.
Today we need such a force to plant the seeds for limitations of corporate
power, transformation to an ecologically sustainable economy, and
rebuilding communities in our fractured land.

In the longer term, outright Green-Progressive victory is a solid
prospect. Again, nobody has said it better than Dugger. "The decisive
likelihood is that Nader's candidacy will contribute to the construction
of a national populist/progressive people's movement that will gather
force for four or eight years and
if the
Democrats continue selling us out to the corporations
metamorphose
and then replace the Democratic Party...not a third one, but the new,
major, American party."

As Nader put it when he accepted the California Green Party nomination
in July, "What of the future for the children
nearly 25
percent of whom live in poverty in our country
and future
generations to come? What will they think of our generation if we do not
launch the green waves and breezes of a resurgent democracy across this
land?"

What, indeed?

Patrick Mazza is a member of the Oregon Nader '96 Steering
Committee.

The tide is moving against progressives, against democracy, and toward corporate rule.

Clinton has surrendered vital ground to the right, endorsing punitive welfare reform. Only the degree to which the poor will be punished distinguishes him from Republicans. Meanwhile, the military budget remains at Cold War levels while a concerted program for rebuilding inner cities and lower-income communities is not even on the table.